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Chasing the Sun: The laugh-out-loud summer romance you need on your holiday! by Katy Colins (20)

Fortuitous (adj.) – Happening by chance or accident

It took me a moment to work out where I was, why I was alone, still fully dressed, on top of a crisp, white hotel bed, with bright morning sunlight piercing my tired eyes. I rolled my head off my pillow, feeling the pull of an aching neck as it came back to me. The fight with Shelley, me storming out and booking myself into a nearby hotel, falling asleep almost immediately after my dramatic departure. I’d never felt this exhausted before. I must have had a solid twelve hours’ sleep but I desperately felt like I needed more. This surely couldn’t still be jet lag clinging on to my brain; those cocktails had been strong but this wasn’t like a normal hangover. I pulled my phone towards me, which had been on charge overnight, feeling the sink in the pit of my stomach as I realised that there were no new messages. Not a single text, tweet or Facebook notification lay waiting for me, from either Ben or Shelley.

My stomach turned as I thought about what Shelley had said to me. Was I jealous? At the time I’d dismissed the idea as ludicrous, but maybe I did feel a little left out. I mean, plenty of divorced people remarry, so why was I finding the wedding world so tough to stomach? Originally when I thought Ben was going to propose, it had taken me some time to get my head around it, but I had actually been excited by the prospect of being able to call him my husband. I thought I’d put it all to bed during my unplanned freak-out at the wedding dress sale in Adelaide. But I guess since being here and having weddings shoved in my face every single bloody day of this trip, I’d been given a wake-up call that left a bitter taste in my mouth. And I couldn’t work out why. I was happy for Jimmy and Shelley, and in no way did I want to take away from their happiness, but something still niggled in my stomach that the froth and frills of the big show were totally pointless.

Maybe I’d said some things last night that I didn’t mean. Truth be told, I couldn’t remember exactly what it was I’d spouted off about. I wasn’t going to apologise though. I’d had enough of pussyfooting around Shelley for fear of awakening the bridezilla beast. I knew that weddings were stressful, emotionally draining and expensive, but that didn’t mean you treated your friends like shit.

I felt like I’d gone over and above in my bridesmaid duties. From breaking down in the outback to playing referee between her family and Jimmy’s, camping on a cold street so she could get her dream dress, and even being humiliated by that cockwomble Lars because I’d put on a bit of weight, sorry, baby weight. Pfft. Thinking back to that embarrassing bridesmaid-dress fitting, a thought rushed into my head out of nowhere. When was my last period?

I sat up quickly, feeling a burn of sick in my chest as I mentally raced through the last month. I usually came on like clockwork, but the last time had been when we’d been holding a travel meet-up in London. I remembered because I’d been so stressed about the event going well that I’d been furious with myself for forgetting to pack some tampons when I realised mother nature had visited midway through the party. But that was almost two months ago now and I hadn’t had one since. Shit.

Okay, maybe youve got the dates wrong, Georgia; or the stress of moving house, the investment pitch with the bank, planning this trip, have all affected you? That happened, didn’t it? You always heard tales of women missing periods due to stress. Plus, my body clock had been so messed up with the long journey here, and the jet lag, maybe that just meant my cycle was slightly off course too.

I jumped out of bed faster than I was prepared for and gave myself a head rush in the process. I remembered the pregnancy tests Cara had added into our hen-do kits as a joke. This better had be a bloody joke, I thought, as my fingers found the box in my messy bag. It wouldn’t hurt to take it, would it? With the sound of Lars’s observations that I had the pregnancy aroma ringing in my ears, I headed to the bathroom. It would be one way to explain my unusual dramatics last night, which were so out of character for me; they say hormones can make you say and do crazy things. No, youre overthinking this. Theres no way youre pregnant.

I would know if I was knocked up; it was ridiculous even entertaining the thought. I mean, surely you know when you are with child? Your body changes, you get morning sickness and you start having cravings, and none of those things had happened. Yes, I’d put on weight, but that was because I was comfortable in my relationship, and had been eating a lot of fast food because of all my business trips. Try as I might to talk myself out of it, something in my subconscious pressed me to carry on and take the test. Hurriedly reading the instructions, I weed on the stick and tapped the timer on my phone as I made myself keep busy and brush my teeth, waiting for the negative result.

Positive.

No, that cant be true! I picked up the box and reread the instructions. This was probably a joke from Cara. They weren’t real pregnancy tests, they were fake ones designed to give everyone a good laugh when you all did them on a hen do. Ha bloody ha. I needed proper, pharmacy-supplied ones to tell me my fate before I even thought about freaking out.

I quickly got dressed and raced out of my hotel, remembering seeing a chemist on the next block before I’d checked in last night. At the time, I’d made a mental note to visit for some more plasters as my feet were still in a bad way from that long hike to the petrol station at Halls Gap. Glancing up and down the street, I made my way into the empty shop and spotted the aisle I needed. I plonked four pregnancy tests on the counter and prayed that no one I knew would wander in.

‘Oh! Are these all for you?’ a woman with half-moon glasses on the tip of her neat nose asked as I dropped my stash at her till. I was convincing myself that it was a waste of time and, blinking back the eye-watering tears at how expensive pregnancy sticks were, money.

‘Yes,’ I said, checking behind my back that Cara or Patty hadn’t popped up behind me to pick up some prescription.

‘Well, I do hope that you get the news you’re after!’ She winked.

I just nodded and gave her a tight smile. You and me both, love. I couldnt be pregnant. Wed been careful. I would know if I was pregnant.

‘Is there anything else I can tempt you with today?’

‘Oh no, just tho—’

‘We’ve got a lovely selection of bath salts currently on two-for-one,’ she rabbited on, stopping to scan each individual pregnancy kit and wave a wrinkled arm at a small cosmetics stand on her right.

‘No, no, just these.’ I smiled tightly. Hurry up, hurry up! I wanted to scream over every agonising second she was taking.

‘Well, if that’s not to your fancy then can I suggest some men’s fragrances that are also on offer.’ I gritted my teeth as she left the counter to open a glass cupboard behind her. She slowly pulled out some naff-looking bottles of aftershave and showed them to me. ‘My nephew is a real fan of this one.’

‘Just this, thanks!’ I said, my voice sounding high-pitched and overly polite, even though I wanted to throttle her with the pearl chain keeping her glasses attached to her.

‘Not a problem, darl’. Now then …’ She rested a liver-spotted hand on my purchases. ‘Oh, this one’s not going through right. Just give me a second and I’ll get Janine on the case.’ She tutted at one of the kits, ignoring me taking a deep breath at how long this charade was taking. ‘Janine to the tills, please. That’s Janine to the tills.’ She spoke through the store’s intercom system, even though it would have been quicker to raise her voice to call for her colleague to do a price check across the empty shop.

‘I can just take the other ones if there’s a problem,’ I said, pleadingly.

‘Oh no, don’t worry. Janine will be on the case.’ She winked and spoke back into the mic. ‘Janine, this lady needs a pregnancy test. Please can you come to the tills.’

Please, ground, swallow me up now.

Sure enough, Janine headed over, holding a box full of athlete’s foot cream, and they both got into a detailed conversation about the scanner playing up.

‘You need to try it again, Diana,’ Janine said, holding the rogue pregnancy kit right up to her eye and peering intensely at it. ‘We’ve just had new scanners installed,’ Janine explained as Diana tried again. ‘It’s been causing us all sorts of headaches. Last week I had a gentleman buying two bottles of shampoo, you know, that special sort they have now for hair regrowth.’

‘A load of nonsense if you ask me!’ Diana piped up.

‘Well, yes.’ Janine put down the box on the counter and placed a warm hand on my arm. ‘Anyway, I scanned them through and it came up on the system as tampons! Well, you can imagine just how embarrassing that was for us all!’ She let out a chuckle at the memory.

‘Oh, right,’ I mused politely, secretly working out which one of them I would punch first. ‘Actually, do you know what, I’m in a bit of a rush so I’ll just leave that one. I think I’ve got enough.’ I picked up the other three kits and prepared to put them into my handbag.

‘Oh, no, well, if you do that then I’ll need to start again, sorry. Don’t worry, it won’t take a moment,’ Diana said, gently prising the kits from my clammy hands. ‘Janine, we do need to do something about it though. I’ll mention it to Richard when he gets in.’

Janine’s face lit up as if that was the most wonderful suggestion. ‘Yes, hell know what to do.’ She turned to me. ‘Richard is the new area manager, lovely bloke and very handsome too.’ She raised a thin, pencilled-on eyebrow, as if suggesting that Richard and I would make a lovely couple. ‘Oh, excuse me!’ She clasped a hand to cover her mouth as she chuckled. ‘I think with these you probably don’t need a new man at the moment!’

‘Hmm,’ I mused. Kill me now.

Before Janine could matchmake me with Richard the area manager, Diana had thankfully and successfully scanned all of the items. I paid, grabbed my stash and shoved them into my bag before hurrying out of there.

‘Come back soon!’ I heard Janine call as I flashed her a tight smile and raced out.

Back in the safety of my hotel room, I chugged a bottle of mineral water and waited for the need to wee to kick in. I ripped open the first packet, rustled the instructions out of the box and read what to do. Open stick, pee on the tab, close it up, lie it on a flat surface and leave it for two minutes. After that the small window on the side of the stick will show a pink cross for a positive test or a single pink dash for a negative test. I got my phone out to set up the timer for two minutes, did a wee and followed the instructions.

They were the longest two minutes of my life, even longer than the awkward show in the pharmacy. I forced myself to leave the bathroom to stop myself sneaking a look at the small window in the plastic stick. The window that would tell me my fate. A window that would be negative.

I paced over the wiry carpet, sank onto the bed and flicked open Instagram, swiped down Twitter, and scrolled through my Facebook wall. None of the information went in, as all I could think about was the fact that in the next room was the news that could change my life for ever. The shriek of my alarm telling me my two minutes were up shocked me like a slap around my face. After rushing back into the bathroom, I stood over the stick, carefully placed on the side of the sink. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. God, stop being ridiculous youre not preg—

‘I’m pregnant!’ I breathed out, the stick dropping through my fingers and hitting the bathroom tiles.

A bubble of manic laughter came from my mouth. No, no. That must be a mistake. I hurriedly grabbed the other three testers and ripped them open, not bothering to read the instructions. I guessed once you’ve done one test you’ve done them all. I guzzled some more water and forced myself to wee. All of them came back with thick, definitive, undeniably, one hundred per cent concrete, big, fat positives.

I was pregnant.

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